Let Us Not Remain Outside the Bridal Chamber of Christ (Great Tuesday)
By Fr. George Dorbarakis
By Fr. George Dorbarakis
“Having understood the hour of the end, O soul, and having feared the cutting down of the fig tree, diligently work the talent given to you, O wretched one, keeping watch and crying out: Let us not remain outside the bridal chamber of Christ.”
1. The above kontakion of Holy Tuesday, in a few lines, sets before us the course of true life in Christ. “Let us not remain outside the bridal chamber of Christ”: the Hymnographer, that is, our Church, calls us not to remain outside the bridal chamber of Christ. What is the bridal chamber? It is Christ Himself and our relationship with Him. He is the Bridegroom and every believer is the bride-soul. Our aim is precisely to remain always united with Him, as happens in the relationship between bridegroom and bride. This constitutes both Paradise and the Kingdom of God. For this reason He came and became man: to receive us and incorporate us into His holy Body, the Church; to make us branches of the tree that is Himself. “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Each believer, after holy baptism — by which he has put on Christ — becomes an extension of Him, another manifestation of His presence in the world.








